Reviewed by Antonella Townsend There might be a case for thinking dogs are blessed with an emotional intelligence that exceeds their beloved humans. At the very least they are a great source of comfort to those who share their lives. So it behoves the human race to spend some effort in understanding their devoted companions.
Reviewed by Clare Brook If ever there was a book that was fated to be an award winning film Natasha Lester’s The Paris Seamstress is it. Set in Paris and New York it has romance, mystery and intrigue. The protagonists are struggling to claim their place in the glamorous fashion industry of the time, but
Reviewed by Ian Lipke A reviewer’s task is to ascertain the author’s purpose in writing a book and to make an informed decision about the extent to which the writer has been successful. This is particularly important in the case of Tjanera Goreng Goreng’s memoir A Long Way from Go Go. The author holds a
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Nicholas Sparks is a wonderful story teller and the presentation of the words on the page makes his stories even more readable. Breaking the text up into readable paragraphs and the extensive use of dialogue to provide the reader with much needed information about the protagonists makes the reading a pleasurable
Reviewed by Pauline Seath Two sisters. One baby. An impossible choice. This is a story of the consequences of drug addiction, and unconditional sibling love. Although this book opens with a desperate phone call to her older sister, this story is about the younger sister Annie and what has brought her to the situation she
Logan identifies the job of the poetry critic as one of contextualising, i.e. as far as he is able, to place the poem into the environment in which it was created. A writer of poetry does not necessarily consider how readers in years to come may interpret his words, but that does not negate the
Reviewed by Norrie Sanders At the age of fourteen, Jade Hameister hatched a simple plan: to ski to the north and south poles and across Greenland. In these days of bucket lists and helicopters, it all sounds simple. But Australian schoolgirl Jade set the bar pretty high. Each trip was to be unsupported and unassisted
Reviewed by E.B. Heath Poetry is the art of calling the same things by different names. Mathematics is the art of calling different things by the same name. Henri Poincaré Eddie Woo was recently named Australia’s Local Hero of the Year, and is one of the top ten teachers in the world. Woo’s unique teaching
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The Honey Badger guide to Life by Nick Cummins, as the title, cover and author suggest, is a blokey book, so why did I, a female septuagenarian decide to see what this book was all about? I suppose it was the cover which on the front sports a formally attired Cummins
Reviewed by Antonella Townsend When a kind person sends you Lorraine Murphy’s latest book, Get Remarkably Organised, it is best to squash the urge to tell them to get remarkably lost. A better strategy is to look around, maybe open a few cupboards and let the piling, spilling, messy, evidence speak for itself. Another response
Reviewed by Antonella Townsend The answer to the old clichéd question ‘if there was a fire what would you grab before fleeing the house?’ has recently been up-dated in my head. Beyond bundling the dog out the nearest door, I would now ignore the family photo album and grab Peter Kuruvita’s latest book Lands of
Reviewed by Norrie Sanders “The first sign of a boom is always the same: strangers. From nowhere they appear, first in drips, then as a flood. They are people in fluoros and suits no one has seen before. As more follow, there are more cars on the road and more car accidents, and, eventually, when
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Most readers today will not be familiar with the name John Cleland, the author of this often censored book which has been resurrected in its unexpurgated form and then edited by Richard Terry and Helen Williams. The sexual content of the book has always been at the root of the various
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke On reading Joanne Nell’s novel The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village, I was reminded of the movies about the Exotic Marigold Hotel, about a small group of elderly people looking for a place to retire. The setting for Nell’s book is a retirement village not far from the beach and
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Enter the fantasy world of Chris Wooding with the action adventure story The Ember Blade. Designed for a Young Adult generic there is plenty of action to satisfy most young people. Beneath the gloss is a series of action scenes cobbled together by not much else. Thirty years before the